I want to talk to you about love

Dear Mrs. Romney,

I’m so glad that you love your husband. But that you love him doesn’t really have anything to do with anything, now does it? I mean, I already have a husband, thanks, and I don’t need to go be falling in love with any other guys.

Your speech last night, with your attempt to seem just like every other woman in the US, was pandering. You’re just like me? You’re just like that mom wondering what’ll happen to her child support? You’re just like that uninsured woman who needs treatment for her ovarian cancer? You’re just like that struggling supermarket checker? You’re just like that mother who wants to have another child but can’t afford it, or can’t find daycare, or can’t swing the thousands of dollars needed for infertility treatments? You’re just like that working mom who has to help her kid with homework on her “second shift”? I don’t think so.

You’re welcome to your opinion, but to say to me that “no one will care more” than your husband? Words, dear, they’re just words.

Your husband has pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act if elected – that’s not a very caring statement.

You telling us that “this man will not fail” and “you can trust Mitt” – more words. What fools do you take us for? Everyone fails. Everybody stumbles, everybody makes mistakes. No one, not anyone, not even Mr. Obama, is infallible. And how can we trust a man who won’t show us his tax returns?

Where are the caring policies that are going to help people who need food, shelter, education? How will we care for the sick, and care for the children whose parents are at work? How will we care for our aging – our aging people and our aging infrastructure? How will we care for our planet, if your husband is elected and vitiates environmental protection laws?

Your husband’s policies and the Republican plank vis-à-vis abortion are really the be all and the end all. Republicans want to eliminate all abortions. But where’s the follow-through? Where’s the prenatal care? Where’s the daycare? Where’s the education for those kids? Where’s the support for adequate nutrition and clean air? A quote from a nun, Sister Joan Chittister, has been popping up in my Facebook feed all day. It turns out that she said this on Bill Moyers' show back in 2004:

For instance, let's look at the abortion question. I'm opposed to abortion.

But I do not believe that just because you're opposed to abortion that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking. If all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed and why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That's not pro-life. That's pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.

I’m open-minded. I listen. And even though I call myself a lefty-commie-pinko, I have views that aren’t completely in lockstep. There’ve been plenty of times at work when I rail about state or federal policies that annoy me, that cause busywork for us, and that the right jumps all over as “job-killing”. I’m not at all enamored of the few unions I’ve had to deal with; they seem to be all about lining the pockets of their administrators and not doing much good for their members.

I want better public transportation. I want there to be congestion pricing so it costs an arm & a leg to drive a car into Manhattan. I want Medicare for all – a single payer system is what we need. I like the electronic medical records that my doctor’s office has used since long before the Affordable Care Act required it - it makes coordination of care a whole lot better. I think guns in the hands of the general public are a disaster. I wish we spent a lot less money on the military.

Here’s the thing. It’s a democracy. We need to work together. We need to be smart about now, and smart about the future. We need to care for all of the people, not just the unborn people and the armed forces.

And just because you tell me that Mitt loves America doesn’t mean that he’s the right man to be President. Because, really. It's not about love.

Love,

Magpie